Obie's Opus

Obie’s Opus

Obie Yadgar

Stories, anecdotes and curiosities

Behind the classical music radio microphone

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© 2007 Obie Yadgar. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 3/20/2007

ISBN: 978-1-4259-9344-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4678-1916 -9 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2007900633

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

Contents

Overture

Prelude

Biography

The most wasted day is that in

which we have not laughed

Some days it doesn’t pay to get out of bed

When a guy gets stabbed in the back and instead of bleeding, he sings

Beechamisms

Only a lunatic would dance when sober

Standing tall

And when love speaks, the voices of all the gods makes heaven drowsy with harmony

Pardon my acid

Sometimes nothing you do makes a difference

Wait till you’re fifty and you’ll see

The trouble with schmucks

What’s in a name?

Forget the damn watch – Give me the money!

Oh, Shit!

The importance of being useless as a critic

Musical quotations for every occasion

Appetite is for the stomach what love is for the heart

Delicious curiosities and stuff

What’s yours is mine

Death does not blow a trumpet

It’s a strange world, aina’?

Mind your P’s and Q’s

Overture

I have listened to the radio all my life. When just a boy, with the lights off in the family room where the old Philips reigned, basking in the soft glow from the dial, I spent hours being transported by the radio to lands I would probably never see. Listening to the radio opened windows into languages and cultures I could only dream about. Outside our home, the real world went by. Inside, I scanned my world with one hand on the radio knob, a cup of tea on the table beside me.

In Vietnam, while I served as a U.S. Army combat correspondent, my little transistor radio helped me escape to corners far away from the war’s cruelty and stupidity, ugliness and waste, death and destruction. Every day my little radio gave me one more chance to hear exotic music and voices just in case it would be my last.

An Assyrian growing up in Tehran, Iran, I discovered early on that our radio was my ticket to places I had only read about, or seen in Hollywood movies. I imagined myself as the fifth Musketeer, fighting for justice alongside D’Artagnan. I saw me falling in love with the portrait of Gene Tierney, the way Dana Andrews did, in the film classic Laura. And, of course, I was William Holden dancing by that river in Kansas with the stunning Kim Novak, in Picnic.

Like all of youth, mine had its own joys and sorrows, curiosities and anxieties, and my radio was the doorway that made my dreams more magical. I would turn the dial and find my own private box seat in the world’s concert halls. The music was as diverse as the languages I heard, and as colorful. It opened my ears to sound. That same sound created in me a thirst for music as diverse as the lands that composed it. The languages I heard filled my ears with tones which years later I would use as a writer and classical music radio announcer: The stories in Obie’s Opus are from those radio days.

I still listen to radio. Not as much as I did when I was a boy with a head full of dreams and all the time in the world to play with them. Radio has lost part of its luster in this age of explosive technology, where you can link up with any part of the world in an instant. But I still see it sparkle.

My old radio, the one from the old country, is gone along with many of the other things from my youth. My new radio is a big black box with enough buttons to decorate a troop of dragoons. It probably pulls in far more radio stations than I ever could in the old days. But it is not the same.

Some late nights now when I take a break from writing, I brew a pot of tea and sit in the dark pushing the buttons and spinning the dial on my new radio. From the study in my home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, I once again travel to places beyond my reach. In those late hours, I dust off the gallery of images tucked away in my memory, taking flight once again to the far away places I visited as a child.

The only thing missing is the glow from the old Philips’ dial.

Prelude

I can only describe this book as some of life’s observations behind the radio microphone, as illustrated by stories, anecdotes and curiosities from the world of classical music. I have been a classical music radio announcer for much of my broadcast career. While also holding titles as program director and music director, they have meant little to me. What matters most is to slip behind the microphone and just do it: play glorious music and chat with the audience.

Since I have enjoyed a parallel career as a writer, therefore, I have always been the writer playing radio. Because of this, I am told I see things differently from many other announcers behind the radio microphone. For instance, a rainy day to me is an introspective day, or a day to sit by the window and watch the world go by, or a day to stay home with a samovar of tea and a Russian novel. A sunny day is a perfect day to put on a pair of fancy shades and float around the city. And so on. I create each show as if writing a new short story. The mood, the music and the conversation are elements of that story. That I pepper my conversations with stories, anecdotes and curiosities from the world of classical music, listeners tell me the practice adds to their appreciation of classical music.

These tidbits are also a way of casting the great composers, conductors and musicians into mortal roles. After all, Beethoven was also a human being, as were Mozart, Brahms and all the rest. They wrote magnificent music, yes, but they also woke up everyday and had breakfast. I can’t remember how precisely I came across each anecdote. Some I have read, but most my listeners have recounted to me, as they often call on the studio phone off the air – I have always been a sucker for a good chat. How true these stories are is hard to tell, even though most have been around a long time. Where my listeners picked them up I have no idea. How the stories have changed with each telling I can only guess. For years listeners have asked me to publish them in a book. So OBIE’S OPUS. I dedicate this book to my listeners with all my love and respect, for you have taught me so much about classical music, and added so much to my love of radio. Thanks for putting up with me all these years, and may good fortune swim in your lane.

Obie Yadgar

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Biography

As a boy growing up in Tehran, Obelit (Obie) Yadgar, who is of Assyrian heritage, spent hours listening to shortwave radio. Years later in America, he drifted into radio as announcer, mostly for classical music and jazz. He has had stints at KDIG, San Diego; WEKT, upstate New York; and KWMU, St. Louis; WFMR, Milwaukee; WUWM, Milwaukee; and WNIB, Chicago. Obie, who also has enjoyed a career as writer, has written for magazines and newspapers, with a tour of duty in Vietnam as a U.S. Army combat correspondent. He has written video scripts, radio essays and short stories. Currently Obie contributes essays to WBEZ, Chicago. Will’s Music, his first novel, was published by AuthorHouse, in 2005, and is available from authourhouse.com. Currently Obie is working on a second novel. He has two daughters, Sonja and Sadie, and he currently lives with his wife Judy in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Obie’s Opus

The most wasted day is that in

which we have not laughed

Nicholas de Chamfort (1741-1794), the French writer and humorist, said that The most wasted day is that in which we have not laughed. One of the biggest laughs I’ve had was the morning Charlie and Gilbert, neutered male pet cats at WNIB, Chicago, had a love fest in the studio during my live newscast. I could never tell that story on my program. The following stories I did tell many times on the air, confident they drew at least a smile from the audience every time.

V00_9781425993443_TEXT.pdf An aging actor called on Offenbach on the morning of October 5, 1880. How is he? he asked. Mr. Offenbach is dead, said the servant. He died peacefully, without knowing anything about it. The actor sighed. Ah, he will be surprised when he finds out.

V00_9781425993443_TEXT.pdf Basso Andrew Foldi, who was doing Die Fledermaus with the San Francisco Opera, was stuck with a dressing room on the third floor. One day, when the stage manager called for places, the elevator was packed with equipment. Stepping back as the door closed, Foldi yelled, They can schlep garbage or they can schlep Foldi, but garbage and Foldi they cannot schlep.

V00_9781425993443_TEXT.pdf In his first job as organist and choirmaster in Arnstadt, Bach was criticized for disregarding rules – organ introductions too long, hymns too short, harmonies too strange, and so on. People also couldn’t understand why he had taken a certain young lady into the choir loft. She’s my cousin, Bach explained, and I was showing her my organ.

V00_9781425993443_TEXT.pdf An organ grinder irritated Jacques Halevy by playing tunes from Rossini’s opera The Barber of Seville outside his window. So Halevy told him, I will pay you one Louis d’Or if you will stand outside Rossini’s window and play one of my tunes. Replied the organ grinder: But Rossini paid me two Louis d’Or to play his music outside your window.

V00_9781425993443_TEXT.pdf Leopold Stokowsky was the first to conduct an orchestra in the U.S. without a score or a baton. Isn’t it a shame that Stokowsky cannot read music? a lady once said. Imagine how wonderful he would be if he just knew how.

V00_9781425993443_TEXT.pdf Somebody told George Gershwin’s father that Einstein’s theory of relativity took 20 years to develop and yet it was only three pages long. It must have been very close print, said papa Gershwin.

V00_9781425993443_TEXT.pdf Backstage, this lady tells the pianist she enjoyed his encore and wants her daughter to learn it. Madam, that music was Robert Schumann’s Opus 23 No. 4, says the pianist. Oh, how wonderful, beams the lady, because I just love opuses.

V00_9781425993443_TEXT.pdf Berlioz had a mistress named Marie, who was a dreadful singer. A neighbor woman once passed the house and heard screaming. Apparently Marie was practicing. The woman cringed and moved on. On the way home later that afternoon, when she heard the screaming again, the woman crossed herself and cried out, My God, it’s three o’clock and the baby still isn’t born yet.

V00_9781425993443_TEXT.pdf During a bad rehearsal, a frustrated Toscanini announced to the musicians, After I die, I shall return to earth as the doorkeeper of a bordello and I won’t let any one of you in.

V00_9781425993443_TEXT.pdf While in London, Haydn was going to have a growth on his nose removed by his friend Dr. John Hunter. On the day of the surgery, an anxious Haydn found four big bruisers waiting to hold him down during the procedure. No way! Freaking out, Haydn marched out of the doctor’s office – with the lump still riding on his beak.

V00_9781425993443_TEXT.pdf Jean Sibelius gave parties in Helsinki that lasted for days. During one party, conductor Bruno Walter had to leave for a guest conducting engagement in a nearby town. When he returned, the party was still going on. Just as Walter was pouring a glass of wine, Sibelius drifted over and, shaking a finger, announced, Shame, Bruno, so long you were in the bathroom.

V00_9781425993443_TEXT.pdf Jean Le Franc, Boston Symphony’s first violist, liked only classical music. Frank Sinatra was once introduced to him backstage. Do you know Frank Sinatra? he was asked. I know Franck Sonata, said Le Franc, but who is this?

V00_9781425993443_TEXT.pdf Verdi’s friend was shocked to find the composer’s vacation home stuffed with organ barrels. Verdi explained that all the city organ players knew he was coming and were planning on cranking out tunes from his operas. The only way he could have a peaceful vacation, he said, was to rent all the barrel organs in town and park them in his house until the end of his vacation.

V00_9781425993443_TEXT.pdf Oscar Levant was kidding around when he told a Hollywood producer that a competitive studio was thinking of taking an option on Dvorak’s Symphony from the New World. Thanks for the tip, said the producer. We’ll outbid them.

V00_9781425993443_TEXT.pdf Going on the railroad is for me like going to be hanged, said Johann Strauss Jr., who had train phobia. So when traveling by train, he would draw the blinds and spent a lot of time stretched out under the seat – with plenty of champagne.

V00_9781425993443_TEXT.pdf Brahms and a friend were discussing a singer who had a beautiful voice but was ugly. The friend held that artistry was more important than looks. For a musician perhaps, said Brahms, but I prefer looks.

V00_9781425993443_TEXT.pdf Deadlines didn’t faze Rossini. "The best time to compose an overture is the